Nobody Loves A Moron
by clair beaubien
Summary: Dean interrupts a hold up and is taken hostage. The bad guy doesn't believe him when he says his little brother is going to save him. Now up Ch2: the detective investigating the robbery meets up with Dean & Sam. Outsider POV.
1. Chapter 1

A/N 1: just for the heck of it, I'm saying this is in Season 6, because I want Dean & Sam to be brothers again in Season 6.

A/N 2: another story that isn't my usual.

* * *

It should've been easy. A Friday night, a working class town, a Mom & Pop storefront restaurant that did a land-office fish fry every week in Lent. Me and Harvey would announce ourselves just before the owner left for the bank deposit and we'd be out again with a few thousand dollars before anybody could do anything.

Easy.

It _should've_ been easy.

Harvey was there for muscle, I was there for brains. It was the first time I took him with me on one of these jobs, the wife wanted me to break him into the business, he's her kid brother. We'd been casing the place a couple of weeks: long about seven P.M. the crowds emptied out and we'd be facing a young cashier, a pimply waiter, an elderly owner, and no automated alarm system. Gloves and masks and a few minutes was all it should take.

It'd be easy.

It _started out_ easy.

We got the three of them in the back, away from the windows, on the floor, just getting them tied up with those plastic pull things. Easy peasy.

Then the bell on the front door chimed and I stared at Harvey. He forgot to lock the door. Like I said – brains he ain't.

"_We're closed."_ I called out.

_"Yeah, you're closed when I get the order I called in forty-five minutes ago."_ Some pissed off guy called back.

Knowing it was easier to give him his food and get him gone, I motioned with my gun to the cashier to take care of business and do it careful. She rabbited out to the front and I stayed out of sight at the door to be close by if she got stupid too.

"Hi. Sorry. What name?" Her voice was shaking. He better not notice.

"Dean. Two dinners. Extra coleslaw on one, extra fries on the other." He still sounded pissed. Good. He'd wanna be out of here that much faster. Two bags with the name 'Dean' were sitting on the counter in back and I handed them to the cashier when she came looking for them, and I warned her with a glance to stay not stupid.

"That'll be $18.26." She told _Dean._ I hoped he paid in cash so he could add to our haul. For a minute give or take all I heard was the cash register. I couldn't get a good look out without risking being seen, but the cashier seemed to be behaving herself.

"I didn't mean to be grouchy." Dean said. "But my little brother was already pissed that we ran out of Lucky Charms this morning. If I go back home with no dinner, he will be _seriously_ pissed at me."

"Oh. Yeah. Ha." The cashier was still wobbly but still behaving. All _Dean_ had to do now was _leave_.

But he wasn't.

"So – what time do you get off work, tonight?" He asked the cashier. Great, he was flirting. The moron was _flirting._

"Uhh – later. Later. We just closed up. We – uh – uh –."

If _Dean_ was smart, he'd keep being a moron and think she was nervous just talking to him.

_Dean_ might've been smart or not – _Harvey_ wasn't. He got impatient, he got stupid – _stupider -_ and barreled out to the cashier with guns drawn. I should've just turned and gone out the back door, but the wife would never forgive me if I left her kid brother to swing in the wind. So out I had to go to, two seconds after Harvey.

Interesting tableau I found there.

Harvey had the cashier in a headlock, with his gun pointed at Dean, who had a gun of his own pointed right back at Harvey. He must've guessed or figured out that the waitress had company. For a minute, I really wondered whose side I should be on; sticking with Harvey was liable to get me killed. But moron kin is _still_ kin. I pointed my gun at Dean.

"_This doesn't have to end stupid."_ He said. I recognized the tone, the confident and casual way he was reacting to this whole mess; the look in his eye that said he'd been through this and worse before, and come out alive.

"Great, you moron." I railed at Harvey. "You pulled a _narc_ into this. Just freaking _great_."

"A narc? Whaddya mean a narc? He ain't no narc. Whaddya talkin' about, Dowd? How'd you know he's a narc?"

"SHUT UP!" Wife's kid brother be damned – he spills my name he spills my blood. "_JUST SHUT UP." _

"No, please – _don't_ shut up." Dean said. He was ticking the muscle in his jaw and staring straight at Harvey. He knew Harvey was the weak link, he knew that all he had to do was get Harvey to break and the show was over. "Keep talking. I bet you've got _lots_ to say I'd like to hear."

The cashier was whimpering and hanging hard onto Harvey's arm. She was my only hope at the moment so I grabbed her away from him and pressed my gun to her head. That changed the game; I could see that Dean was reconsidering his options.

"C'mon, Dowd. Let the girl go. She doesn't have to be part of this."

"_Shut up_. Put the gun down or you get a side order of brains with your coleslaw."

He wavered. I wouldn't ice the cashier, I always kept jobs clean as possible. Maybe Dean could see that, and maybe he couldn't. Maybe he'd dealt with enough scum worse than us that he'd be afraid to take the chance.

Whatever course _Dean_ chose – I was never _EVER_ using Harvey on a job again.

"What's it gonna be?" I growled, yanking on the cashier, to make her blubber, to make my point.

"_All right._" Dean gave in and held his hands and his gun up. "Just let her go. You've got _me_. Let her go."

"_Fat chance_." I pointed my gun at him. "Gun on the counter, slide it over to me."

He did it, smooth, his gun ended up right where I wanted it. I pushed the cashier away, behind me, grabbed the gun and waved Dean into the back room with the rest of them. I didn't like him, Dean. For a _lot_ of reasons, but right now mostly because he wasn't freaked by what was going on. A freaked hostage is easily cowed. A calm hostage, a _confident_ hostage, is trouble. Lots of trouble.

I didn't trust Harvey to tie Dean up so I took care of it and Harvey tied up the girl again. She was still sniveling and begging us not to hurt her. I told her to shut up or I'd make her shut up. When I stepped back from tying Dean up and checking him for more weapons, he was looking at me, appraising me. I didn't like that either. I considered wiping the look off his face with the butt of my gun.

"_What_?" I knew I shouldn't let him get to me; a _calm_ robber gets to be an _old_ robber. But he was getting to me.

"Just wondering how tough you gotta be to take on an old man and two kids."

"_Shut up." _

"Sure, why don't you untie me and see if you can _make_ me?"

All the while, he was talking like we were only shooting the breeze, not like I had all the guns and he was a _hostage_.

"How stupid do you think I am?" I asked him back in the same tone. See, I could be calm too.

Until Dean lifted an eyebrow and looked from me to Harvey, then back to me again.

"Do I _really_ need to answer that question? _Dowd_?"

That was it, I pulled my hand back to threaten him a good one – and all he did was _smile_ and wait for it_. _Clean jobs or not, I swore if he wasn't a narc, he would've been so wasted so fast just for looking at me like that. Just as I was about to let fly though, his cell phone rang. If I hadn't been so pissed, maybe I would've let it ring. But I was pissed. I pulled the damn thing out of his jacket pocket, held it up to him just long enough for him to say 'hello' then put it to my own ear to hear whatever was going to be said.

"Dean, where the hell are you? You've been gone over an hour. We've got a case to investigate, in case you forgot."

The partner then. He sounded impatient, annoyed, and _young_. This'd be easy.

"_Dean's a little tied up right now." _I growled into the phone. There was a pause.

"_Who is this?" _Came growled back at me.

"_I'm the guy who's got a gun pressed your partner's neck. Who's __**THIS?**_**"**

There was another pause, I guessed I'd given him something to think about and I expected to hear the babbled questions and useless demands of impotent rage, or the hackneyed questions of wanting to keep me on the line long enough to GPS us. What I got was a new voice - the _same_ voice, but pitched so low I almost couldn't believe it _was_ the same voice. He spoke every word low, slow and distinct.

"_I'm the guy who is on his way to rip your heart out."_

Then the connection cut off and I was left with a stupid brother-in-law, three scared hostages, and _Dean, _who looked all kinds of smug.

"Who was that?" I asked. He shrugged.

"That was my little brother."

Right, the little brother who got upset because they ran out of Lucky Charms that morning? Tell me another one.

"_Who __**was**__ that?_" I demanded this time. "Was that your partner? Does he know where you are?"

"I _told_ you," he said in that smug '_I know that you know that I'm lying straight to your face'_ tone, "That was my little brother. _Sammy._ He's waiting for his dinner."

He smiled again and I did haul off and whack him a good one across the face. I was getting pretty damn tired of this whole mess and since the wife would never let me near her again if I was to take it out on Harvey, it was Dean I wanted to make suffer for it. But, despite the split and bloody lip I gave him, he was _still smiling._

"Tough as all that, are you?" He asked.

Behind me, Harvey was getting more nervous, more twitchy, and more a giant pain in my ass.

"C'mon, Dowd. Let's just get out of here. Let's just take the money and get out of here. Before his partner brings the whole damn police department down on us."

I really never wanted to hear him say another word as long as I lived.

"_I swear to God, Harvey, if you don't __**shut up**_ -."

I knew my mistake the second it was out of my mouth. Now Dean knew my name _and_ Harvey's name. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. And it put a grating gleam in his eye. Well, if I was going to have to waste the lot of them, I was starting with Dean. I knelt beside him, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and pointed the gun at his eye.

"C'mon, Dowd." Even with my gun in his eye, he was calm and understanding. "You haven't done anything stupid yet. This can still be easy. It doesn't have to get messy. You've got the money, just take it and go."

Behind me, Harvey was sputtering, the girl was whimpering, the pimply boy was trying not to cry and the old man was murmuring what sounded like a prayer. This should've been easy. Like all the rest of my jobs, this should've been _so _easy. And it all blew up just like that. Just because Harvey is a moron and Deanneeded to feed his little brother.

"_Don't think I won't blow you to hell."_ I threatened him. He only huffed like I'd suggested he was supposed to mop the floor and he thought it was funny.

"I've _been_ to hell, Dowd. And you know what?" He leaned closer to me, a snarl in his voice and in his eyes. "For a while there, _I was in charge of it._"

This was starting to get scary, and the scariest thing was – with that look on his face, I believed him about hell. I stood up just to be farther away.

Well, what needed to be done, needed to be done. We had masks and gloves and I had Dean's gun. I'd use that on Harvey just to tell the wife it wasn't me who shot him. Harvey _had_ to go first, just so I didn't have to listen to him whine anymore. I turned to him and he just looked at me. He was such a dimwit, he didn't even know what I was about to do. I wasn't going to miss him.

Just as I was about to raise the gun and plug him right between his squinty eyes, something tapped the window that faced out to the back lot. It sounded like a pebble hit the glass.

It sounded deliberate.

"_Hit the lights."_ I told Harvey and for about the first time that night he got it right, right off the bat. The light switch was right next to him and just like that, we were in darkness. It didn't level the playing field as much as I hoped it would – there was no lights in the back lot, and we had the glow from the front area of the restaurant reaching us, but it was better than being in the plain, open, light.

I didn't move and I didn't see anything moving out there. Then another pebble, and it _was_ a pebble, hit the window, flinging up like it got bounced off the ground and into the glass. Then another one. And another one.

"What the hell is that?" Harvey demanded, and decided he had to be closer to the window to find out. _Moron._ I almost considered wasting him right then and right there.

"Get away from there!" I hurried to him to pull him back from maybe getting his head blown off by whoever was out there, and at the same time wondering why I _cared_ if he got his head blown off. The pebbles stopped tapping and just as I was registering that that was a _bad_ thing, a rock crashed right through the glass.

Harvey, all six feet of _moron_ that he was, raced to the window, probably intending to empty his gun at all of the nothing that he couldn't see and I grabbed his arm before he could light up the neighborhood with the facts of our being there. The girl screamed, the pimply boy did start crying from the sound of it, and the old man went silent.

Dean was _laughing._

"_What's so funny?" _I had to demand.

And I was reminded that he said he'd been in charge of hell when he said back to me, clear as day and deadly calm,

"_The look on your face."_

Chills I hadn't felt since I started this line of work rattled up and down my spine. I could believe Dean could see my face in the nearly dark. I barely reined in my panic.

"_Who's out there?"_

"_My little brother."_

"_Stop saying that. I'm sick of you saying that."_

I moved towards him to shoot him or kick him or _something, _but in the near darkness, I could see him moving, doing something, and suddenly –

"_Harvey – turn on the lights._"

- suddenly Dean was on his feet in front of me, with his bound hands now in front of himself. The sudden brightness of the overhead light stabbed my eyes and in the two seconds it took for me to flinch away from looking right at it, the back door splintered open and suddenly there behind Dean was the biggest guy I'd ever seen. Dean was big, but he was bigger. He made Harvey look small. Hell, he made the _industrial freezer_ look small.

And he had a sawed-off shotgun aimed straight at me.

He knew what he was doing with it, too. He had it held just right, aimed just right. He was calm and confident, just like Dean. And the look in his eye told me he was only a thought away from pulling the trigger.

Yeah, well so was I.

I raised my hand fast and put the gun to Dean's chest.

"Drop it, or I drop him."

"_Dean_?" Was all he said. It was the deep voice from the phone, Dean's partner. Still calm, and only calm, and taking a measure of the situation. But when Dean turned to look at him, when _Partner_ got a look at Dean's bruised face and bloody lip, his eyes _blazed_.

_Right at me._

"_Him_?" he asked. I figured my death sentence filled up that one word.

"_Him._" Dean said, signing my death warrant, never mind that I still had the gun on him.

"_You want me to waste him?"_ I demanded.

_Partner's_ mouth curled up into a half smile that was bone freezing chilling, and he minutely readjusted the grip he had on his gun.

"_I_ want to blow your head off."

Behind me, Harvey was a ball of anxiety and stupidity.

"_Kill him, Dowd! Just shoot him! Shoot 'em all! They're gonna gets us sent up! I'm gonna shoot 'em if you don't!"_

I didn't want to take my eyes off the narcs, but I didn't want Harvey hosing down the place either, not if there was still a chance we could run with our skins intact. I turned half a glance towards him.

"_Shut up!"_

Half a glance and no more. And yet - the next thing I knew, my face was on the floor, my arm was in the air, my shoulder was in agony, and the gun was in _Partner's _hand.

Harvey's panic went off the charts.

"_Dowd! What the hell!_" Sounding like any of this was _my_ fault. _Moron._ If he'd had any brains, he would've run.

Well, he _did _run – right at _Partner_, who dropped my arm, met Harvey's head with the butt of his rifle, tripped him, dropped him, cuffed his hands around the leg of the freezer, pulled out a knife and cut Dean's bonds, gave Dean the knife, and had my arm twisted four ways to hell again, all within seventeen seconds.

_This should've been so easy._

"Got him?" Dean asked, as he gave an expert pat-down to Harvey, coming up with a gun, a knife, and a straight razor.

"_I got him."_

In another half minute, I was cuffed right up next to Harvey and patted down for my weapons, the cashier and waiter and old man were free, and Dean and his partner took up their weapons and were headed out the demolished back door. Dean stopped though, came back and grabbed his bags of dinner from the front counter. Guess he was serious about needing to feed his little brother. On his way back, as the old man was calling the cops and the cashier was comforting the pimply kid, on his way back to the back door, Dean crouched next to me and gestured to his partner filling the doorway he was waiting for him at.

"Just so you know – _that's _my little brother."

Then they were gone and a few seconds later I heard the roar of classic engine tear up the street. A minute after that I heard the sirens tearing down the street.

"Are we in trouble?" Harvey asked.

_Moron._

The End.


	2. Chapter 2

_Oooookay_.

I checked out the window for a third time, but still no full moon. So – what's up with this crew tonight? I looked through the statements. Harvey was insisting that something resembling Mothman attacked him. The kid only knew that the two big guys tied him up and the two bigger guys let him go. The old man ID'd Harvey and Dowd, they all three did, and he said a customer got taken hostage with them, and that this customer's brother rescued them. The girl said that Dowd threatened her and that Dean – the customer – kept pulling his attention onto himself, and that a guy who Dean said was his brother broke in the back door and took out both Dowd and Harvey single handedly.

Dowd apparently hadn't said much of anything but "_Moron_" since the responding officers found him and Harvey kissing the floor at the restaurant.

I'd been on Dowd's trail forever, so when I heard he was finally in custody, I asked to be part of the case and the Lieutenant asked me to interview everybody again to see if I could any more information out of them.

I started with Harvey.

"Okay, what – "

But I had no chance to finish before Harvey jumped right in with his tall tale.

"I swear, man. I _swear_, he just _swooped_ in there, with these big huge wings and red eyes. BIG red GLOWING eyes. And _wings_." He spread his arms out like maybe I didn't know what wings might be. "One wing broke the back window and the other wing broke open the back door, both at the same time and he just swooped in -."

I stopped him before he could do his Mothman "wings" demonstration again and thought we should have him tested for drugs because he had to be on some really good ones.

Then I went to the kid, the waiter. He was the grandson of the owner's wife's Bingo partner. Eighteen at the most. Apparently he'd been practically in shock when he was rescued.

Apparently, he was over that shock.

"Dude, they were like HUGE. Like HUGE huge." Similarly to Harvey, Ryan supplemented his statement with exaggerated arm movements, miming what he was telling me. "Not even just linebacker huge, they were even more huge than _that_. And tall. HUGE tall. You know? It was all like just Bam! Bam! Bam! And then BAM! It was like – wow, dude. _Wow_."

Yeah. Wow. Totally.

Okay, next to the old man. He at least was calm, composed, sitting with his wife. She had her beads at the ready, gripped in one hand. Her other hand was gripped tight in both of her husband's.

"Mr. Book? Thanks for holding on, we're almost done here. Is there anything else you can tell me about the two other men who were there? Even the smallest thing could be important."

"His brother, he kept saying his brother was coming. His _little_ brother. He said 'little' brother, he kept stressing that. _Little._ And then -." Mr. Book splayed out his fingers in a gesture of amused resignation. "Boy, was he _little._ 'Little' like that could get you someplace, know what I mean? But Dean – his name was Dean – the older brother – Dean kept stressing 'little' like it was a _little_ little brother he was talking about and not the one man army that showed up."

"And did either one of them say anything about being a police officer?"

"No, they didn't. The _little_ brother, he hardly said anything at all. It was the one guy, Dowd, he's the one who kept saying Dean had a partner. I mean – Dean never contradicted him, but he never agreed to it either. He was a real cool customer, know what I mean? He really kept things from going to hell on three wheels."

Okay, never heard that metaphor before. Whatever, on to the next.

The cashier was sipping a can of Sprite and tapping her sneaker heel against the leg of her chair.

"Is someone coming to get you?" I asked her.

"Yeah. Yeah. Mom and Dad. They'll be here any minute. My Dad's _so_ gonna make me quit that job, y'know? He's gonna wanna rip their heads off, y'know? He's _so_ totally over-protective of me. I'll be lucky if he even lets me outta the house again 'til I'm twenty-one. Y'know?"

"Hmm. Yeah." I really didn't care all that much. "So, Dean – he kept Dowd's attention away from you and Ryan and Mr. Book?"

"Oh, yeah. He was _so_ cool, y'know? He could tell right away that someone was wrong, right? But he only just kept talking like we were _so_ just shooting the breeze, y'know? And all the while he was using his fingers and pointing, asking me how many bad guys there were, and how many of us there were, y'know? Then he pulled out a really badass gun and he pointed to me and pointed to the front door, like I should run outta there, y'know? But only the big, ugly guy came out then, y'know? And he grabbed me, y'know?"

What I _did _know was that I really really really wanted to pound my head on the table. _Y'know?_

"So – um -." She twirled her hair around her finger and pulled one shoulder closer to her chin. "So – that other guy – Dowd? He said Dean is a cop. Is he? 'Cause if _he_ wanted to take my statement, y'know, he could. _I wouldn't mind_."

She paused, twirling and tapping and batting her eyes-wide eyelashes at me.

"So? Is he? A cop?" She asked, brightly and hopefully.

_Oh dear God in Heaven._

I didn't answer her, I took myself over to the last interview room.

"Dowd." I greeted him.

"Devon." He answered back, flat and uninterested. "I know _you're_ not in charge of this case."

"Oh, no. But for the chance to finally put _you_ behind bars, I'm volunteering my services."

He glared at me but didn't answer, so I kept going.

"So –." I sat down across from him and flipped open his file jacket. "Let's see what hijinks you've been up to tonight. Hmm – armed robbery, aggravated assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, menacing and – oh! – _stupidity."_

I gave him a minute to answer but he had nothing but glare. So I gave him some _more_ good news.

"Speaking of stupid – Harvey filled us in on a lot of other jobs you pulled. Ones you pulled all on your own. Guess you shouldn't have bragged to him about how big the haul was all those times, hunh? The DA's got Harvey dealing like he's in Vegas. So just for you, tomorrow, Saturday, _my day off_, I'm making a day of it to compare notes with the boys in blue across the state line."

He only just kept staring at me, and I had to shake my head.

"All the thought and planning and finesse it took to pull off all these jobs – if you'd put even half that effort into _anything_ legal, you'd own your bank by now. Instead, now, you're looking at seven to twenty – in _this_ jurisdiction_ - w_hile Harvey walks in three. So maybe you should start doing some talking yourself."

He glared, he glowered, he realized he hated Harvey more than he hated me.

"What is it you want me to talk about?"

"The two guys who schooled you – who were they?"

"Why? Why do you care? You want to congratulate the _little brother_ for saving the day?" He asked. I was used to his sarcasm, so I let it pass and waited. Finally, he shook his head, thinning his lips in a way I knew meant he was telling the truth.

"I got no idea who they are. Harvey didn't lock the door, and Dean waltzed himself in, wanting his dinner he'd ordered. Harvey broke cover and then everything went to hell. _Dean_ turned out to be the biggest pain in my ass that I've ever had." Dowd looked me up and down. "And that's saying something."

I checked the notes again.

"This says you had him tied up with the other hostages, you even walloped him a good one across the face. And _still_ he got one over on you? _You_?"

Dowd huffed and shook his head again.

"Nothing scared him. I threatened to blow him to hell and he said he'd _been_ there and while he was there, he _ran_ it." He was still shaking his head. "I never should've answered his phone."

Oh, yes. _The phone call._

"So – what exactly transpired in that phone call? You thought it was Dean's 'partner', but it turned out to just be his _little_ brother?"

The glare I got that time should've set off the fire alarms.

"He said they were working on a _case._ Dean I already figured for a narc or undercover, so when he said on the phone that they were working a case, I figured it was his partner. Yeah, he kept saying it was his _little_ brother, but I thought he was just goading me. When was the last time a little brother did _anything_ _nice_ for his big brother, after all?"

I didn't answer him and he shrugged and looked away.

"Harvey got on my nerves. I never should've brought him. This wouldn't have happened if I'd been by myself. _I_ would've locked the front door. Then Dean wouldn't have gotten in and I would've gotten away. But _no._ The wife says I have to bring him. He's her little brother. _Damn little brothers._"

There was a lot I could've said on _that_ subject, but I didn't. I shut his file and stood up.

"Well, I have to get ready for my little road trip tomorrow. Anything else you care to tell me?"

He thought about it a minute.

"Their car. I didn't see it, but almost as soon as they left, I heard a muscle car engine. I figure it had to be theirs."

It wasn't much, but no detail was too small and I marked it down in the notes.

"He said he was coming to rip my heart out." Dowd said while I was writing. I looked up at him; he almost sounded wistful. "On the phone, when I told him – the partner – Sam - the _little brother_ – that I had a gun on Dean – I expected him to panic or to bargain or to go into cop-speak procedurals. He sounded like a rookie. But when I threatened Dean, his voice got deep, really deep and he only said that he was coming to rip my heart out and then he hung up. And then when he saw that I'd hit Dean and split his lip, I thought he was going to reach down my throat right then and do it. And when they were leaving, Dean actually stopped to tell me '_that's my little brother'._ He sounded _proud_ saying it. Proud of his little brother."

He held my gaze for a minute.

"How was I supposed to see _that_ coming?"

SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN* SPN

Late the next afternoon found me one state and three counties away from home, sharing information on Dowd's activities that seemed to stretch back a decade with detectives from a couple of neighboring precincts. It was dinner time when I started back home and I pulled into a highway rest stop to grab a fast burger and get on the road again.

As I parked, I noticed a classic car one row up, an Impala, as it so proudly announced itself. I'm not as into cars as Dowd is, so I couldn't tell the year, but I figured late sixties or so. I didn't think anything else about it.

I went inside the rest stop, heading for the burger counter. I walked past a guy, standing at the newsstand, reading a magazine. I noticed him first because he was big. I noticed him _more_ because of the bruise on his jaw and the split in his lip.

A fast look around showed me an even _bigger_ guy walking toward the burger bar. He was limping, like maybe he'd wrecked his ankle.

Split lip, sprained ankle, classic car…

_Dean and Sam. _

They didn't quite fit my mental image of them. Yeah, they were big and bigger, but other than that, they looked like pretty much any other guy in the place. I know '_heroes'_ generally _do_ look like everybody else, but after the descriptions I'd been graced with the night before, I don't know, after all the descriptions and hyperbole I'd had to endure about them, I guess I was expecting them to be lifting buildings off their foundations with their bare hands and rescuing kittens from trees without needing a ladder.

But Dean – if it was Dean – was just reading his magazine, and Sam – if it was Sam – was just standing in line for dinner.

Kind of anti-climactic, really.

I forgot about my own dinner for the moment and made my casual way over to Dean.

"That's quite a wallop you must've gotten there." I said. He gave me a smile over the top of his magazine.

"You should see the other guy." He said and went back to his magazine.

"I _have _seen the other guy." I told him. The look he answered me with was so mildly interested and so only slightly puzzled that I would've believed he had no idea what I was talking about, if I didn't already believe that he _did_ know what I was talking about.

"Had any good fish fries lately?" I asked him.

"I don't know – asked any questions that made sense lately?" He answered me, still mildly, slightly interested and puzzled.

Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. I pulled my badge and showed it to him.

"I'm Detective Devon Brennan, from up in Lakeside. I'm investigating the armed robbery of a Mom and Pop restaurant that happened there last night."

"Lakeside? Kind of far afield, aren't you?"

"I follow the leads where they take me." I told him. "So – I have reason to believe that you and your brother were there last night." I gestured to Sam waiting at the 'pick up your order here' spot at the burger counter.

Dean shook his head like he really had no clue what I was talking about, but he didn't say anything about whether they'd been there or not, or if they'd even been in Lakeside at all.

"What if I told you that witnesses saw your car outside the restaurant in question last night?" I asked.

"I'd say that statement would have a lot more weight behind it _without_ the 'what if'." He answered, calm and casual and shooting the breeze.

"C'mon – _Dean_." Using his name got me no reaction either. "Couple of really tall guys, one got hit in the face, one kicked in a door – probably wrecking his ankle." I gestured to Sam again. "Taller one is the _little brother._ None of this sounds familiar?"

He shrugged and sounded honestly sincere when he answered,

"Wish I could help you, but – really – I don't go around robbing Mom and Pop restaurants."

He was good. He hadn't said definitively if they'd been in Lakeside or not, he hadn't said his name was Dean, he hadn't said that Sam was his brother, and while I hadn't even remotely suggested they weren't suspected of the robbery, _neither had he_.

"Hmm…" I considered my options. "Well, I'm just going to go have a word with Sam. Maybe he'll have a different story to tell."

And I still got no reaction other than a shrug, "_Whatever,"_ and he turned back to his magazine. I headed for Sam.

He was leaning his shoulder against the wall, it looked like he was keeping weight off of his right ankle. He was studying a menu and didn't look at all surprised when I addressed him.

"I'm Detective Brennan." I told him, showing him my badge and pointing over my shoulder back to Dean. "I was just talking to your brother about how the two of you were up in Lakeside last night."

Same as with Dean, I got the puzzled-but-not-concerned look from him.

"I can't see _my_ brother saying I was in Lakeside last night."

"So – you _weren't_ in Lakeside last night?" I asked him. That would get me a 'yes' or 'no' answer.

Except it only got me a shrug. I was getting tired of those.

"What is it you think I _did_, in Lakeside?" He asked instead of answering.

"I'm investigating an armed robbery."

His eyebrows went up in surprise and he smiled.

"I might've snuck a Clark Bar out of a convenience store when I was five," he said. "But I've never committed _armed robbery_."

He was a good as his brother, not giving me any details I hadn't already given him. I was giving them rope and they were refusing to hang themselves with it.

"What if I told you that you and your brother were seen at the scene of the crime?" I tried.

He didn't lose the smile.

"Why _don't_ you tell me that, then? If it's true."

I ignored that.

"How'd you hurt your ankle?" I asked instead.

"Who says I hurt my ankle?"

"You're limping."

He shrugged again. I was getting even more tired of those.

"Doesn't mean it's my ankle. Could be plantar fasciitis, could be sciatica. Could even be a herniated disc I suppose. Why? Did the armed robber have a limp?" He sounded like he actually wanted to know.

"You and your brother aren't wanted for the robbery." I told him what I was sure he already knew. "You saved the hostages. You two are heroes."

I expected he might deny again that they had anything to do with it, or that he might finally admit they did have something to do with it. Instead, he gave a short, sharp, genuine laugh as he turned to pick up his carry-all of food and empty soda pop cups.

"_Ha_. You think _I'm_ a hero? You really _are_ talking to the wrong guy."

Well, if Sam wouldn't take the compliment for himself, surely he'd take it for the brother he'd risked his life to save.

"Your brother Dean kept the robbers pissed at him and kept them from harming the other hostages."

Sam thanked the clerk and turned toward the counter of napkins, ketchup, and soda pop dispensers. He was still limping.

"So what you're saying is that you think that a guy who risked his life for strangers is a guy who'd make me stand in line with a bum leg? Yeah, that's _consistent_."

He smiled when he said it and limped over to the soda dispensers. I followed him but I was beginning to wonder if I really had the wrong guys after all. Either that, or they were very, very experienced talking around the police.

"Well, there's a lot of people who think the two guys who thwarted that hold up _are_ heroes. A lot of people would give them medals, me included – if we knew who they are."

He didn't look at me. He filled his two empty soda cups with ice.

"Maybe they just did what they had to do." He said. "There's nothing heroic about that."

Something in the way he said that made me think I _wasn't_ wrong about them, after all. They'd faced down armed & dangerous men, because Dean couldn't _not_ try to save the hostages, and Sam couldn't _not_ try to save his brother. And to them it wasn't heroism or even out of the ordinary, it was just what they did.

"I disagree." I said. "Thank you for your time."

He gave me a '_yeah, sure, anytime'_ that was a little surprised but mostly polite and I walked back to Dean for one last comment. He was still with his magazine, at the last page it seemed like, judging from the back cover folded back, and he looked up as I got close.

"Find the bad guy yet?" He asked.

"Oh, I know who the bad guy is," I said, thinking of Dowd. "He's already behind bars, awaiting arraignment on Monday. I was looking for a couple of guys who cared more for the safety of others than they did for themselves."

He looked like he was thinking about it and then answered like he'd just thought of an answer and was very pleased with it.

"Try the fire department. I hear that's a basic quality of firefighters."

"Can I tell you something?" I asked, ignoring his remark, bracing myself for a '_can I stop you?'_ snide reply. But all I got was a sincere,

"_Sure."_

"I have a big brother who's the kind of guy who'd use a kid as shield to protect himself. He's hated me and envied me and been the bane of my existence pretty much since I was born. He's never once said of me '_that's my little brother'_ with anything other than scorn. And I'm pretty sure I'd never risk my life to save him from a splinter, much less armed men."

Dean kept his eyes on me, giving me his full attention. I kept going.

"You know why I really wanted to find those two guys who saved the hostages? Because I didn't believe there could be two brothers who cared that much about each other, or be that proud of one another. I wanted to meet brothers who are that close."

He thought about it a second or two and I wondered if I was finally going to get the truth out of him. But he only said,

"It's been my experience that that kind of brother is pretty much one in six billion."

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought." I said. I couldn't help sighing and I decided to head for home without getting dinner first. I wasn't feeling that hungry anymore anyway.

"So – you don't see your brother much anymore?" He asked. I sighed again and felt the familiar dread sitting like a stone in the back of my throat.

"_His name's Dowd Brennan. I'll see him Monday at his arraignment."_ I told Dean and walked away before he could say anything else.

The End.


End file.
